Romania’s value-focused brand found out in 2025 that it could also launch and shift larger SUVs in serious numbers, with models starting from a minimum of €25,000. Enough, in fact, to start stealing the spotlight from earlier hits such as the Duster and Jogger.
Dacia closed out 2025 with growth of 3.1% and 697,000 sales within the Renault Group. It is a solid performance, even if it did not calm nerves: the brand’s French boss, Denis Le Vot, left the company during the summer, while competition has been ramping up with Chinese manufacturers.
Bigster production passes 100,000 units
At the start of 2026, the Bigster has already crossed the threshold of 100,000 units built at the Mioveni plant (Romania), running at a rate of 1,357 Bigsters produced per day (one every 55 seconds). That is a thoroughly respectable output for a vehicle of this size - and for what is both the most expensive model in the range and the priciest in the low-cost brand’s history.
Orders opened in early 2025 after the car was unveiled at the Paris Motor Show 2024. By spring, it was arriving on the roads with an enticing proposition: a price not so different from the Duster for a vehicle offering 22 cm extra in length, plus a 667-litre boot. Even before deliveries began, it had already chalked up 13,000 sales.
More than 8 million Dacias have now rolled out of Mioveni since 1968. The Bigster is not outmuscling the brand’s other models outright, but it has clearly “cannibalised” Dacia’s results. In 2025, 67,500 Bigsters found buyers, with a sharp rise in the second half of the year as it became Europe’s best-selling compact SUV among private customers. Dacia’s top seller overall remains the Sandero.
Bigster pricing, trims and powertrains
Among those sales, buyers mostly went for the Journey trim - the range-topper - which is only offered from €28,600 with the 140 hp petrol engine (mild hybrid). Even so, that was not the powertrain chosen by the largest number of customers, who favoured the 155 hp hybrid (non plug-in), from €32,000 (65% of sales).
Bigster sales by market
Not all of these sales come from France. France is a major market, but it is not the biggest contributor to Bigster volumes. In total, France has accounted for 17,460 sales since the model went on sale. 95% of sales come from Western Europe, with the Bigster featuring among the best-selling cars in Germany, Portugal and Italy.
A single platform to reach a 3-million-a-year market
Even if launching such a large SUV looked surprising for a value brand, Dacia had a clear reason: Europe’s C-segment SUVs now represent a market of 3 million sales per year, and every major player in that space is priced far higher. Think, for example, of the Peugeot 3008, Renault Austral, Toyota RAV4, and Hyundai Tucson.
At 4.57 m long, the SUV is the biggest in the line-up and a major step up from the Duster. Even so, it remains close in size to the Jogger (4.55 m) - the brand’s rugged estate that can be turned into a small camper van with its “Sleep pack”. At the time, Denis Le Vot said it cost Dacia nothing to use the Duster’s platform.
“We started from the bottom, as usual, to make a big car. It’s a segment B platform that makes it possible to create a segment C vehicle. With a width of 1.80 m on the Duster, we had room to extend the car without turning it into a dachshund,” he explained during the model’s press drives in April 2025.
Comments
No comments yet. Be the first to comment!
Leave a Comment